U.S. Giants Bet on Shale Gas in Poland

Poland’s entire natural gas industry and a special U.S. envoy in charge of energy gathered at a shale gas conference Thursday sponsored by the likes of Chevron, ExxonMobil and Halliburton. U.S. giants will start drilling for shale gas in Poland within the next few weeks. If they find meaningful amounts of it, Poland’s energy mix, carbon dioxide issues and even external policy may change completely.

Thanks to shale gas, over the past two decades the U.S. has drastically reduced its reliance on imported gas and in fact became a gas exporter. Geological research shows that a similar U-turn is possible in Poland, which may have enough shale gas to satisfy all of its gas demand for decades — or more.

At present, Europe’s gas industry is still divided into the western part, which relies heavily on imports from Algeria and its own production, and the eastern part, including Poland, mostly dependant on Russia’s Gazprom. A discovery of large shale gas deposits in Poland could diminish Gazprom’s importance in Central and Eastern Europe.